Ashley Madison Says Site Continues to Attract New Members After Hack

Adultery website Ashley Madison said today it has continued to attract new members, many of whom self-identified as female when signing up for the service.

Avid Life Media, the parent company of Ashley Madison, said in a statement today that "hundreds of thousands of new users signed up for the Ashley Madison platform" in the wake of an unprecedented hack that left as many as 37 million members exposed. Of the new Ashley Madison members, the company said 87,596 are women.

"Recent media reports predicting the imminent demise of Ashley Madison are greatly exaggerated," a statement from Avid Life Media said. "The company continues its day-to-day operations even as it deals with the theft of its private data by criminal hackers. Despite having our business and customers attacked, we are growing."

The latest statement comes three days after Noel Biderman, the CEO of Avid Life Media, announced he was stepping down from his position and handing over control of the company to its senior management team until a new chief executive is selected.

"This change is in the best interest of the company and allows us to continue to provide support to our members and dedicated employees. We are steadfast in our commitment to our customer base," a statement posted on Avid Life Media's website said. "We are actively adjusting to the attack on our business and members' privacy by criminals."

A 500,000 Canadian dollar reward (approximately $376,000 USD) is being offered for information leading to the identification, arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators.

Personal data believed to have been stolen from Ashley Madison was posted on the dark Web a little more than a week ago, apparently exposing names, email addresses and phone numbers for some of the website's 37 million members, among other information.

The data dump came one month after Avid Life Media confirmed a "criminal intrusion" into its system.

Going by the name "The Impact Team," the hacker or hackers said the breach was spurred by a disagreement with Avid Life Media's business practices, specifically a "full delete" feature. For $19, the company allows repentant cheaters to scrub their information from the website.

"Full Delete netted ALM $1.7mm in revenue in 2014. It's also a complete lie," the Impact Team wrote after the hack last month. "Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real name and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed."

Business practices aside, the hacker or hackers also had another message: "Too bad for those men, they're cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion...Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn't deliver."